


our summer in non-definitive acts

by commovente



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, F/M, Slow Build, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6251377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commovente/pseuds/commovente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
keishin first sees her at the local <i>matsuri</i>, the summer before he takes up a coaching position at karasuno.
</p>
</blockquote><p>
keishin and saeko's summer, as told and lived in the little moments.
</p>
            </blockquote>





	our summer in non-definitive acts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crollalanza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crollalanza/gifts).



> hello, this is my gift for the haikyuu rarepairs exchange! ukai/saeko is a ship i never really considered before, but they're really cute & i had a lot of fun writing this : )
> 
> i hope you have fun reading this, too!

 

> "everything  
>  smells like light. everything  
>  looks like love."  
>  \- fortesa latifi, "my mouth can't stop thinking about your mouth"

 

 

_( i )_

 

keishin first sees her at the local _matsuri_ , the summer before he takes up a coaching position at karasuno. she’s bright and bold and loud, leads the taiko drummers with a fierce grin and a fast, pounding rhythm. head swimming, he doesn’t recognise her, doesn’t yet know her face from one to the next, but he can’t help taking notice of her anyway. he watches her throw her head back in laughter he doesn’t hear but thinks he might feel beating against his ribs, pounding in his chest.

(either that or it’s the alcohol, tugging him at last towards an early night and the promise of deep, dreamless sleep.)

( — or not.)

he hears her still when he wakes up the morning after, an afterthought of an echo ringing faint in his ears. there’s sunlight streaming through his window, warm and searing against the back of his eyelids. birds call to each other from the street, their song an unknowable laughter stretching across the sky.

keishin drags a hand over his face, takes a deep, ragged breath, working up the will to get up and get on with his day. he manages something halfway there, dragging himself out of bed and into the everyday motions, lips crooked upwards in a lopsided grin.

it’s a start.

 

 

_( ii )_

 

“ ’s a filthy habit ya got goin’ on there, sensei.”

keishin fumbles the cigarette in his hands, shoulders hunching to hide the evidence of an act he’s been caught right in the middle of, head tipping back towards the voice coming from behind him.

what he sees is this: the upside-down image of a girl peering at him, grin plastered across her face, one hand on her hip, the other holding a lighter open and ready between curled fingers.

“uh,” he starts, not entirely sure how he means to continue. 

_i’m on break,_ the defensive corner of his brain supplies, _the hell d’ya want._ elsewhere in his head, the milder-mannered (though not by much) storefront part of his brain adds on, _and customers aren’t allowed up the back, anyway._

keishin shakes himself out of his thoughts enough to realise he’s staring. he should probably say something right now.

“sensei?” he echoes dumbly instead.

“mm,” she answers, “up at karasuno, yeah? the boys’ volleyball club — i’ve seen ya coaching the kids there.” she pauses for a second. “oh! my brother’s on your team. ryuu. i’m tanaka saeko.” saeko jabs a thumb at herself, nodding. 

“ah, right,” he says. “gotcha. can i, uh. help you with anything?”

“nah. store looked awful empty so i just thought i’d check out what’s happenin’. need a light?” she waggles the near-forgotten lighter in her hand helpfully. keishin scratches his head, barks out a laugh. 

“better not.” he’s grinning himself something stupid — he can feel it. “should probably get back to work.”

saeko laughs too, sunny and brash and keishin’s breathless in the face of it, struck by the familiar edges of a memory surging up alongside the sound, hazy recollections of drums and festivals and pulsing summer nights. 

_it’s you,_ keishin realises. _that was you._

“well, ain’t that right,” saeko says, throwing a wave and a smile over her shoulder, already letting herself out through the back. “don’t go smokin’ in front of the kids, ya hear?”

“…sure thing.” 

then keishin watches her leave, stares after the space she stood as he fidgets with the unlit cigarette, wondering if maybe he should’ve taken her up on the offer, after all. 

 

 

_( iii )_

 

golden week comes and goes. 

to no one’s surprise but his own, he ends up sticking around to coach karasuno after all. it’s not a bad deal, the team works hard and plays hard and keishin sees them going far, some ways down the road, starts to actually entertain the idea of being the one to take them there. 

and, save for that day at the back of the store, nobody else dares — or even considers, more likely — calling him sensei. keishin rolls his eyes at the thought, tells himself he’s not ignoring anything, that it doesn’t remotely feel like a loss.

no, it’s not a bad deal at all.

 

 

_( iv )_

 

the idea grows into a dream and the dream lasts them all the way to the interhigh semi-finals. the aftermath of karasuno’s loss falls into three similar yet separate phases:

 

the immediately after, which lasted quickest but felt the longest of the lot; 

the some time later, when time starts letting it hurt less but not fast enough for it to stop hurting at all, or ever; and

the approaching distant horizons, which feel more like pieces falling together than putting back things freshly fallen apart.

 

keishin’s not nearly through with his team yet.

 

 

_( v )_

one friday night finds him at a bar, unassuming but well-cared for, the easy atmosphere seeping into his mood, lifting him up. tanaka saeko's manning the bar in a one-man show of clinking glasses and easy conversation. she calls him over when she sees him, but keishin’s already there, feet one, two, five steps ahead of him, hands pulling out a seat at the bar.

sliding a beer his way, saeko rests her head on her elbows against the bar, says, “yo, sensei.”

_you’re the only one who calls me that, ya know._

“don’ call me that if i’m gonna drink, ’s weird.” he takes a sip of his beer and she tilts her head, lips crooking up into a smile. 

“ya think? sensei’s still sensei to me.”

keishin snorts, lets that sink in as she bustles to grab drinks for someone else. when she comes back he thinks there’s something different about her, still smiling but somehow more real, tangible and close. or maybe she’s always been like that. he wouldn’t be surprised.

“so what brings you here? never seen ya around before.”

keishin glances down at the bar, fingers drumming against the wood.

“just tryin’ to catch a break, i guess.”

he thinks maybe she’ll be gone by the time he looks back up again but she’s still there, attention focused but not overbearing. keishin still sees her clearer than anything else in this place. saeko nods, maybe in response, maybe just because she felt like it, not one to let something like reason get in her way of doing anything.

“take all the time you need.” and just like that she’s brighter than ever before, eyes crinkling into tiny crow’s nests when she smiles. “ ’s what i told ryuu just the other day, actually. you’re all workin’ real hard over there.”

“can’t help it,” he says, “i wanna take ‘em all the way, this time.”

keishin can’t remember admitting this to anyone else before, but he doesn’t regret saying it.

saeko hums.

“well, i dunno whether i understand exactly,” she starts, “but i think i get what ya mean.”

she punches his shoulder, the touch light and teasing, but her expression feels sincere. “it’s how it always is, ain’t it?”

keishin smiles wider than he has all evening.

“yeah,” he says, “it is.”

there’s a simple honesty in talking to her that stays with him even after he leaves, a faint ringing in his ears of distant, clinking glasses, like saeko's laughter, like happiness.

 

 

_(“come back anytime,” she tells him just before he leaves. “maybe even a grab a drink together, ya never know.”_

_it’s not the first time he’s struck seriously taking her up on an offer. this time, he thinks he will._

_“sounds good,” he promises.)_

 

 

_( vi )_

in weeks to come he finds himself chasing empty hallways and echoing sounds in the day, searching out her laugh. as night blankets the sky he sees her in a rasp of cigarette smoke and sleep deprivation, the memory of her blurred and soft between blinks, part dream or delusion or some incriminating mixture of both. 

this is how his summer ends: saeko is everywhere and isn’t, all at the same time.

keishin yanks the sheets up over his head, toes sticking out on the opposite end of his futon. he grumbles and fusses but ultimately falls asleep in a literal and figurative tangle of himself, fingers slowing still from the unconscious rhythm they’d been tapping against the floor, a drum beat only his ears can hear. 

 

 

_( vii )_

as karasuno heads for tokyo to train, keishin vaguely recalls tanaka mentioning something or other about knowing hinata and kageyama’s saviour but ultimately shrugs it off, trusting it means they’ve got a ride up to camp without him having to worry.

and he doesn’t, but as the doors to the gym slam open just before the last couple practice matches for the day, keishin can’t honestly say he feels nothing at all.

tanaka saeko has always been full of surprises.

“hey boys,” she calls over her shoulder, “they’re still goin’ at it in here, just like i told ya.”

saeko stands bolder and brighter and _more_ every time keishin sees her.

 

 

_( viii )_

saeko ends up staying over the first night of camp, goes out drinking with him and the rest of the coaches and staff. it’s not exactly what he had in mind when he made his earlier promise, but it’s still good, still a great night. he’s happy. 

keishin’s buzzed and warm by the end of the night, excuses himself for a bit before heading back to the school for some air, maybe a smoke. he leans against the wall of an empty street the cigarettes aren’t even out of his pocket yet when saeko appears ‘round the corner, first her face, then the rest of her.

“got a light?” he grins, keeps his fingers tucked in his pockets.

saeko laughs.

“hey, hey,” she says, “who do you think i am?”

she leans against the wall beside him but doesn’t pull out her lighter and that’s how they stand for what could be minutes, could be hours, making mindless conversation about nothing in particular some of the time, sharing comfortable silence the rest.

on their walk back to school saeko sways a little, and keishin rests a hand just behind the small of her back, just in case. she holds her own though, even offers to sling his arm ‘round her shoulder, asks if he doesn’t need someone to keep him up. keishin doesn’t miss her playful grin for a second, thinks he wouldn’t mind being around to see it all the time.

“not gonna drop me?” he says instead, and when saeko laughs so does he. he looks at her, brilliant and dazzling like a firework. _like saeko._

“nah,” she lets her head fall against his shoulder, smiles into the soft sleeve of his shirt. “i’ll send ya flyin’.”

 

 

(he thinks, _yeah, you will._

he thinks, _you already have.)_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> [tumblr](http://www.aobaejousai.tumblr.com), [twitter](http://www.twittercom/kitaiichis)


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